Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Preserving the Harvest: Green Beans

I've had fun harvesting a few goodies from our garden! We ate all of the broccoli fresh as I learned that I picked it too soon - so our harvest was not what it could've been! We are now enjoying lots of fresh green beans!

I've been putting some in the freezer so that we can enjoy them a bit more spread out and since I have two squares of green beans planted, we are getting more!

A quick trim of the ends:

3 minutes in boiling water:3 minutes in ice water:Ready for the freezer:Now, take the water you boiled the beans in and the ice waterand toss them on your garden!Do you have a favorite way of preparing green beans?I'd love to hear - this is our favorite!

21 comments:

I love green beans fresh from the garden.My current way of preparing them is to place them on a baking pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake for about 20 minutes. You can give them a shake every once in a while if you think of it. Yum.

Oh what a blessing to have tender green veggies from the garden. I am so proud to know of someone who will go to the trouble to do this. It is really more fun than trouble as such activity, I think, binds us closer to our Creator and I know you do also. We did it when we were younger and lived in the country. I miss that. Our children have the gardens now and supply us with the veggies.

Congratulations Monica!!! Your harvest is lovely (and early too!). I was wondering if you have ever heard of canning *dilly beans*. My understanding is with this recipe you can use a waterbath!! Has anyone done this before, were they yummy????Thanks-tammyp

Yum, fresh produce! I cook my fresh green beans until tender with a little salt and either a piece of ham or bacon for flavoring. I usually can the rest of my green beans in my pressure cooker. Commercially canned green beans just don't taste the same!

Sigh....I was looking forward to harvesting the many beans from our garden. About two weeks ago some rabbits had a midnight garden party and devoured every single plant! Ah well, they haven't bothered anything else that we've been growing.

Oh, I was just going to suggest making a jar or two of dilly beans! Here is the recipe I used (but for the life of me I have no idea what happened to my photo!) http://puresugar.net/?p=976 I didn't can them in a waterbath, and they didn't last long enough anyway because they were gobbled up pretty fast!

My favorite way to prepare green beans for special occasions (as it's not very healthy) is to stack about 10 whole green beans (ends cut off) into a little bundle. Wrap half a slice of bacon around each bundle and secure with a toothpick. Lay in a baking dish. Then mix brown sugar, melted butter, and garlic powder together and pour over. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or longer until done. Very nice when plated and so very tasty!

I would love to be harvesting produce from our garden already, but we don't live in an area to be able to do that yet.

Anyway, I wanted to share another way to freeze green beans without blanching them. Snap off the ends of your beans. Break them or leave the beans whole. Wipe off any dirt, but do not get them wet. Put them in freezer bags or containers and freeze. When you are ready to use the beans rinse them well. If you are boiling the beans bring them to a boil, drain off that water, add fresh water and cook as desired. Or, you can blach them and then use them in whatever recipe.

This method makes the green beans taste like they were just picked. Also, you don't get freezer burn from putting wet beans in your freezer. Also, if you do the method you showed you might want to lay the beans on a cookie sheet and quick freeze them before putting them in a bag. This will eliminate you ending up with a huge clump of frozen beans.

I hope these ideas help you. Feel free to check out my blogs. I have some gardening/preserving info and plan to post more this year. Also, I really enjoy reading your blog.

Hi Monica! One way my husband came up with which we all really like over here is to steam the green beans... Then toss them with salt and pepper, butter, flour, and a few splashes of lemon juice. They turn out refreshing and yummy!!!

I don't comment often, but read your blog regularly. When w lived in Africa, we learned to cook our green beans in much the way you do. We saute them olive oil with minced onion and garlic. Then, in place of the water that you add, we add soy sauce. This seasons them, and creates a slightly sweet, caramelized glaze. They are great served hot or cold - depending on the weather.

In Cameroon, they also serve diced green beans (about 1/4" slices) as part of a salad/relish tray. Leaving everything raw, cut the beans, some carrots, some celery and some seeded tomatoes arrange them in sections on a serving platter (or mix together if you're plating it yourself), and add a mustard vinaigrette. Yummy, gives loads of "crunch" factor!

Enjoy your SC harvest... After living in SC for 6 years, and overseas for 5, I'm missing the early harvest here in NW Ohio. But - the lettuce this spring is amazing!